


The Road of Hearts

by Orlha



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Because of Reasons, F/M, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Neji Lives, Neji as Rokudaime, Romance, Sorry Not Sorry, Team 7 is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 13:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11186292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: After the 4th Shinobi war, Sakura finds herself stuck in the past, unable to move on, not realising Shikamaru has always been there.





	The Road of Hearts

Sakura spends a good two hours every day at the memorial stone. The shadows in which she sits in never touch the stone. She visits so often that she now recognises the guards that guard the park.

It’s night time when she visits today. This time she pulls out a large bottle of sake and pours it into a cup, next to a cup of shochu that Kakashi loves. _‘Loved,’ s_ he corrects herself.

The pinkette sinks to the ground in front of the two cups and takes a generous swig from the sake bottle. The moon above is thin and narrow, like how Kakashi’s eyes would crease when he smiled. Sakura can see small puffs of clouds as she exhales, taking another gulp of the sake. She can almost hear the incessant babble of Naruto talking about things that happened while she was in the hospital, the quiet flipping of the book that Kakashi never really read but pretended to anyway.

“It’s been two years, sensei, Naruto-kun,” she says, quietly. Two years since the war ended, two years since the fight that Kakashi and Naruto died in, since the traitor was executed, since her parents died. It’s not the same for everyone. Some, like Ino and Shikamaru, only found about the deaths of their loved ones at the end of the war. Sakura might not have the sharingan-aided memory like Kakashi, but she held their cold bodies, remembers the fight that ended their lives, remembers the last conversation she had with them.

“I was going to be your best man, Naruto,” Sakura chuckles lowly. “Hinata would have looked amazing in the white kimono beside you.”

She takes a swig of the sake bottle, the clear liquid mixing with the salty taste of her tears. They were her family. How she loved them. She palms the tears away, tilting her face towards the dark star-specked sky.

“Team seven rule number one, never leave a man behind. Team seven rule number two, don’t die,” Sakura says to the crisp winter air, feeling a shiver run down her spine. “This is my home and I will defend it with my dying breath. See, sensei? I can still remember it. I still remember, yet why am I the only one left? You left me behind.”

 

 

Her face is pressed against a warm back when she wakes. She should recognises the scent of grass and dusty shadows, except she can’t. Sakura blinks blearily at the dark hair, her arms thrown over the man’s shoulders, the man’s arms looped around her legs as they trudge down the dark streets.

It’s been two years and even though Konoha is in a better shape as compared to a year ago, it is nowhere as prosperous as it was before the war. Streetlights are turned off in wee hours of the night to save electricity.

“Sasuke?” Sakura muses, half-asleep, then reels back mentally. It can’t be _Sasuke,_ the bastard is dead, deader than the dirt.

“Still asleep?” the low baritone asks, not taking offense that she had just mistaken him for the one of the biggest traitors in Konoha’s history. “You know, when I promised Kakashi-senpai that I would take care of you, I didn’t think he meant coming out at two am to carry you home.”

Sakura hides her face in the man’s vest. “Then he shouldn’t have died.”

“No, he shouldn’t have,” he agrees. “Next time, you should just bring me along from the beginning instead. Or tell me where you’re going to be at least.”

Sakura could hear the worry in his voice, the tension in his body dissipating with each step he takes. With pretty much everyone that had cared for her dead, she can’t put a finger on who this person might be. Sakura lifts her head to squint at the man’s face. His dark hair hangs down and despite missing his usual spiky ponytail, she’s not even sure how she had mistaken Shikamaru for Sasuke. The height, the width of the shoulders and even the low burn of chakra from his core is different.

“Shikamaru?”

He sighs. His warm hand tightens around Sakura’s thighs almost painfully. “Ino was worried. She woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone. You didn’t even leave a note.”

The gravel beneath Shikamaru’s sandals crunches loudly. Sakura can feel the low hum of the patrols hopping past them, Shikamaru circulating chakra to keep his body warm. She understands now why Shishou had drunk so much now. The world without Kakashi, Naruto, shishou, her parents and all those she had considered precious to her, is a world not worth living for.

“You know, you still have us,” Shikamaru says. “Even without senpai and team seven, you still have Ino and me left. We aren’t going anywhere.”

 _No you aren’t, but you weren’t there from the beginning,_ she thinks.

 

 

It is New Year’s day and Sakura is lying against the tree when she senses Shikamaru land next to her, dropping a jacket over her. “You should bring your jacket out next time,” he sighs. He lights out a cigarette and sits down beside her like he has nowhere else to be. Shikamaru is clan head now. It’s traditional for the clan heads to visit their clan members on New Year’s day. Sakura remembers reading this in the books. It had fascinated her back then, back when reading was for leisure. She doesn’t ask, though. The warmth of his body beside her anchors her, holding her afloat so she’s not drowning. If she asks, she fears he might leave and she doesn’t want to be alone.

She scoots a little closer to him and he sighs. “Are you still cold?” he asks. Shikamaru puts an arm around her, holding her close to him, letting her siphon heat from his body. Pulling a bottle out from his pocket, he uncorks it and hands it to her.

“I thought you didn’t want me to drink anymore.” Her lips quirked as she sips on the sake that Shikamaru brought.

“Not alone. I don’t want you to be passed out alone.”

_“Sakurrrrrraaaa, are you drunk again? What did we agree on drinking?” Naruto pokes her in the cheek. She grumbles and bats him away._

_“Yes, no drinking alone.”_

_He heaves her onto his shoulder. “Are we going to be imitating our Shishous? Does that mean I should start peeking into bathhouse?”_

Her hand clutches the corner of Shikamaru’s vest, trying to ride out the crest of emotions. Her favourite loud-mouthed person, her adopted brother, her best friend. She misses him so much that she can feel the ache in her chest. The more time passes, the less she remembers of him, of them. What did his laughter sound like?

_“Ne, ne, Sakura-chan, what do you think stars are made of?”_

“Fire, balls of fire,” she whispers out loud and finally remembers how Naruto chortled at her response. A low bellied snort, him leaning over, gasping and clutching his stomach.

_“Really Sakura? Fire? That sounds more ridiculous than ero-sennin giving up peeping!”_

“The year Jiraiya-sama died, we sat under this tree and shared a bottle of sake together. We did it every first Saturday of the month after that. As if to confirm that we were still alive, still… _together._ ”

She trembles at the memory, trying to stop the heat in her eyes from escaping. Shikamaru holds her tighter, not saying a word when she presses her wet eyes into his vest. His warm hand rubs up and down her arm, the scent of his cigarette smoke enveloping her like a shield.

Sakura feels him press a kiss into her hair. “It’s okay. We’re here.” His chest rises as he takes a slow breath to exhale. “It’s okay. We’re here,” he tells her.

 

 

Sakura completes her mission, dropping her scrolls off at the outpost. A hawk screeches above as she jumps from branch to branch. The sound of the trees swaying in the breeze seems to whisper her name.

_Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan._

She thinks that her parents must have called for her when they died in the village. She left them to die instead of protecting them like she promised to. _It wasn’t not her fault_ , Sakura reminds herself. She was out fighting for a war, not knowing the enemies that snuck into their camp. She couldn’t have known.

She crouches, placing her head between her legs. Her lungs burn, begging for a gasp of air that she can’t seem to find. ‘ _It wasn’t my fault,’_ she reiterates to herself, even though the guilt that sits heavily in her chest belies her words.

Sakura runs. Not to Konoha. Sakura runs as fast as her feet would take her away from Konoha, from the memorial stone, from the memories. The sun sets and rises, and still she runs. Perhaps for three days straight, she runs, finally hitting the shore where she stops, panting. Her feet are burning, a jag of agony rippling through her when she collapses to her knees on the sandy beach.

“It’s not my fault!” Sakura screams to the waves. The waves swish and roar to her words. Even if she knows it’s not her fault, it still feels like her fault. She kneels, head pressed against the wet sand, and cries.

_“Hurry up Sakura-chan! We’re gonna drag teme back!”_

Her breaths are coming in harsh, stuttering gasps. Sakura claws the sand, her body now prone on the cold ground.

_“Maa, there’s no hurry. My cute little genin has no need to hurry to become jounin yet. Sensei will be there for you when you need.” His single eye crinkles in his distinct manner, ruffling her hair._

“You p-promised…” She lies on the beach and falls asleep.

 

 

Sakura doesn’t return to Konoha. Instead, she runs even more, this time putting her old sensei’s stealth skills into use. She dulls her chakra signature to a civilian's and hides her scent with a time-worn anbu skill. Days turn into weeks and before she realises it, her once shoulder-length hair is only short of a few inches off of the small of her back. Her once-vivid hair is now a very pale pink, bleached by the excessive sun she’s been under, and her skin has been darkened by the sun then lightened by the cold winter. ‘ _Almost silver like Kakashi-sensei,_ ’ she thinks. She spends her time traversing the lands. She spends her nights sleeping on rooftops or trees or occasionally beneath rocks, stealing a bath from homes with no one around or a quick cold one in the stream. She sees how the Kumo Country is, through the various Kusa towns but it’s in Kiri when she finds a familiar orange book in a bookshop.

The book is new, the glossy cover still shiny with dark bold words printed on it.

_“How can you prefer ‘Icha Icha Paradise’? Obviously ‘Icha Icha Tactics’ is far superior.” He levels an unimpressed dark grey eye at her._

“That’s the last copy of ‘Icha Icha Tactics’,” the bookshop manager says. “They haven’t been printing anymore. Heard the writer passed away, how sad.”

Sakura puts the last of her money on the counter and buys it. The book smells of new pages, white pages instead of Kakashi’s yellowed, dog-eared copy. She cries as she reads it and then reads some more.

 

 

It is in Kiri that she spends the longest time. Not for the dreary weather or the equally dreary food. It’s the relative solitude in the mountains that lures her to stay there. The heavy mist providing a natural deterrent to any non-shinobis and any shinobis can’t detect her with the genjutsu seals she sets around her tiny cave. That only lasts until a wounded kiri-nin trying to get home passes out close to her perimeter. Unable to ignore the instilled medic code in her, Sakura picks the shinobi up and carries him to her cave. She heals most of his life-threatening wounds and returns to where she found him, wiping their presences from the forest.

His pursuers dash past her cave and circle the area several times, aware that there’s something there but unable to tell what. Sakura watches them from the tree branch, the hair on the back of her neck raising, her hand inching to her kunais. She might need to fight and she really doesn’t want to, far too aware that solo practice would never be good enough compensation for battle-honed instincts.

She flings herself off the tree even before the three shinobis could finish saying ‘kai’. “Now, now, boys,” Sakura drawls, projecting her best imitation of Kakashi. Her kunai digs into a shinobi’s throat as he swallows lightly. “We don’t want anyone to die, now do we?”

“Kenichi! What are you doing?” hisses a younger shinobi to the older one when he doesn’t move.

“Shut up, Ryoma!” Kenichi shoots back. “Can’t you tell? It’s Bone-smasher Haruno Sakura!”

The one called Ryoma snaps his head back to her in surprise. “I thought she had pink hair!”

“I fought beside her during the war! I recognise her chakra signature.” Kenichi bows. “Please Haruno-sama, let us talk this through. We have no grievances with you... even though you’re clearly on Kiri’s territory. We weren’t even aware that you were here. The last I heard you were… missing?”

He winces at his implied words and Sakura is immensely amused. When had they started documenting her presence? Was it when she became Tsunade’s apprentice? When she defeated Sasori? Or maybe when she defeated hundreds of Zetsu with her strength and earned her much dreaded title. The older shinobi shuffles uneasily under her stare but it serves to only irritate the younger one.

His blond hair is muted in the mist and like most ninjas with less experience, he lets off a loud roar as he pounces towards her. Sakura ducks, her hand catching Ryoma’s wrist. She tosses him into a tree, shunshining towards him.

It turns out, months of disuse in active combat doesn’t really dull her senses.

She dodges and evades the young shinobi’s jutsus and kunais with an ease and wonders if this is how Kakashi felt when he fought against team seven for the first time.

_He corrects her stance and runs through them with her over and over again. “This is the Hatake kata. Firm and unyielding.”_

She can see all the holes in the shinobi’s defense, all the strikes she could take in an instant to end him. She doesn’t take them, not all, at least. Her fingers weave a rapid pattern across his skin, each strike promising a bruise.

He is lucky to get away with just bruises and his teammates know that.

“Ego is the downfall to all shinobis,” she tells him when he’s lying on the ground, panting. Sakura lengthened the fight on purpose, to humble him, but ego always has been the hardest thing to beat down.

“Fuck you,” he heaves. His teammates grab him and run before she can decide to kill him - not that she would.

They will be back eventually and by then… she will be gone. Her time in Kiri has run its course. Two months of solitude. She stares into the mist covered forest, trying to remember Konoha’s forest. Would leaving the village be considered abandoning her teammates?

_“Those who break the rules are scums… but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum.”_

She thinks of the forest that surrounded her home. She thinks of the training sessions between Kakashi and her when she was the only one of team seven left. The warmth that filled her when he crinkled his eyes at her, assuring her that he wasn’t going to abandon her just because she was the last one.

_“You are my heir, Sakura. Be proud.”_

“Thank you, Kakashi-sensei.”

Sakura shoulders her pack when the injured kiri-nin is awake and suitably healed by the week’s end. “Thank you, I don’t-” She waves the kiri-nin’s words away and disappears into the mist.

 

 

Her feet pauses on the Great Naruto Bridge.They serve Great Naruto Ramen on the Great Naruto Bridge. Sakura bursts into laughter as she eats the large pieces of naruto from her bowl of ramen.

‘ _If only Naruto could see this now,_ ’ she thinks. ‘ _The Great Naruto serving Great Naruto Ramen on the Great Naruto Bridge.’_

Sakura dreams of Naruto that night, the twelve year old Naruto bounding down the road in his bright orange outfit.

_“We’re not giving up on our mission. A shinobi never gives up!”_

She had forgotten about Naruto’s shinobi motto and as much as she wants to deny it, she isn’t fixing her problems by running away from it. Naruto wouldn’t have run from it, or at least Sakura thinks he wouldn’t. He was the most headstrong ninja she had ever met. The brother she always wanted.

_“We have to stop him, Sakura-chan. It’s our responsibility.”_

Naruto, in the end, had to back down on saving Sasuke in order to save the rest of his precious people. She knew it hurt him deeply, but he never showed it. His smiles had brightened the medic shelters. Naruto who never stopped working towards being a Hokage despite everyone’s disbelief.

_“Ero-jiji told me once that a shinobi's life is not measured by how they lived but rather what they managed to accomplish before their death. She’s… dead right? The fourth shinobi war has ended… right? I did… okay, right?”_

Naruto wouldn’t have wanted her to waste her away like this, to pine for him, for Kakashi-sensei, for those lost and gone. How could she not?

Sakura sits in front of the grave of the first shinobis that team seven killed. The first C-rank mission that started them on their path. She was weak then, she is still weak now.

Sakura looks at her hands, the hands that saved everyone except for the people that matter the most. What was the point of having these hands if she was going to lose everyone anyway?

_“It’s okay. We’re here.”_

Shikamaru who came for her to make sure she wasn’t passed out somewhere, Ino who worried enough to prod him into doing so for her. Ino must have given birth by now, Sakura remembers belatedly, and she wasn’t there for the birth of Ino's first child. What a terrible friend she is. She looks up and catches the tiny patch of bright blue sky amidst the heavy clouds, the bright blue sky that reminds her of Naruto’s eyes. The days have been growing in length too, the leaves are turning into a lush green. Sakura can feel the heat beat down on her now.

Then Sakura stops running.

 

 

The first patrol that finds her stops and stares - like they’re surprised to see her and they probably are. She’s been gone without leave for a long time. Even though she’s never done anything against Konoha or scratched out her hitai-te, it is right for them to label her as a missing-nin.

“Haruno Sakura?” the one in the sparrow’s mask asks. She nods. The four exchange a flurry of hand signals, all too fast for her to catch - then again, Sakura isn’t even trying. “Mouse will escort you to the Hokage’s office.”

Tree jumping on the Hashirama trees is something she missed, along with Ichiraku ramen. A pang of grief crawls over her shoulders, reminding her that Ichiraku ramen doesn’t exist anymore. The large gate looms into the horizon as they approach it. It’s larger than she remembers - the painted green gates with the nostalgic ‘peace’ painted on.

Her anbu escort skips her over the queue, right to where Kotetsu blinks at her identification card and back at her face. “Haruno Sakura?” He opens his mouth to ask more questions but is stopped when another anbu drops from the trees beside him.

“Go ahead.” The newly arrived anbu waves her on.

Sakura follows the anbu’s instructions, except she can’t help but think that they should have had a different reaction.

It is like she was not even missed.

She swallows, trying to press down the rising bile in her stomach. Would she be trialed for her disappearance, was she labelled as a missing-nin? Cold seeps into her limbs the longer she thinks about it. Part of her insists on turning and running away, the other part reminds her of Naruto. Sakura looks down. She’s wearing a dark blue sweater and pants, civilian wear mimicking a jounin outfit for her jounin uniform had long been worn into threads. Her hair is no longer the pastel pink that once was her iconic appearance. She rubs a thumb across her ID.

This Haruno Sakura isn’t her anymore.

Mouse, her anbu escort, cuts through the training grounds, through training ground seven where she spent the better part of her teenage years training. Instead of the large fields and tall trees, the training ground is now filled with sand and large rocks. It’s different. Everything is different.

She falters on a branch as the city and the main administration buildings comes into view.

They’re still red with red roof tiles, but it’s different, all of it. Taller, larger, bigger, not the three storey sprawl of buildings that she was used to.

“Haruno Sakura?” Mouse asks, his low voice breaking into her war of thoughts.

Everything has moved on without her and she doesn’t fault them. How is Ino? How is Shikamaru? How is Hinata? Has she found one else? How is the hospital and Shizune? Would she be accepted back? She laughs - a mirthless, hard laugh. “W-would they even take me back?” she starts, unable to hold back the tide of questions. “Is there space for me? This is all my fault, I shouldn’t have run, I knew that. I just couldn’t take it. Ino must hate me, Kage, she must hate me so much. That I wasn’t strong enough, that I wasn’t-”

Mouse shakes her so hard that her teeth rattles. “Sakura, stop it.”

“I wasn’t good enough, not enough for anyone. They must look down on me now, that’s why no one-”

“Sakura!”

Her words still on her tongue, the pain on her cheek shocks her from her word vomit.

“Are you with me now, or do I need to slap you again?” Mouse asks. She nods, unable to trust her voice. Mouse takes a deep breath and then curses. “Goddamnit Sakura. I had this whole tirade for you when you got back, you know?”

She recognizes his voice, the way he speaks. “Shikamaru?”

“You disappeared, Sakura. Do you know have any idea how _we_ felt?” He grips her by the shoulders; bony, gloved fingers digging into her flesh, hard enough to bruise. “Do you have any idea how _I_ felt?” Mouse shoves his mask up, scrubbing his face with great fury. He has lines of worry set in his face. Mouse - no, Shikamaru looks exhausted.

“It’s not like I asked you to!” she retorts. Guilt churns in her stomach as soon as she sees the look on Shikamaru’s face - like he had been slapped. “Shika-”

He waves her off, briskly setting their pace.

 

 

They slide through the open window. The room is different from the time of Tsunade. Dark chakra-infused concrete lines the floor and instead of one table, there are four tables manned by shadow clones and one in the center that has to be the Alpha.

“Hokage-sama, Haruno Sakura has returned.” Shikamaru bows to the one sitting in the middle.

“That’s good.” Neji sighs and motions Sakura to come forward. “Are you better now?” he asks, instead of reprimanding her like she expects.

“I… I… yes.” Sakura purses her lips then asks the one question that has been on her mind since she started her way back. “W-what is my designation, Hokage-sama?”

His pale purple eyes sweep across her. Despite the fact that Neji had been the Hokage even before she left, Sakura is unable to get used to seeing him behind the desk. She has the feeling that Tsunade was going to bustle through the doors any minute now with a bottle of sake (or a lollipop, if Shizune caught her first) in her hand.

“Tsunade was gone from Konoha for over a decade. I’m sure we could have spared you a few years.”

“A- a… few years?”

“You were gone for two years, Sakura.” Neji pulls out several forms from a drawer and then stamps it. “Get a new ID done and fill out these forms. There are some temporary dorms you can use while you find an apartment. Mouse-” A smile spreads across his face. “Mouse will help you get settled, won’t you?”

“Hokage-sama-” Shikamaru says, and Neji cuts him off with a wave.

“Welcome back, Sakura. I’ll see you in a week.”

 

 

The next morning, by the time Sakura is done with her new ID, Shikamaru is standing outside the room waiting for her in his normal jounin uniform.

“All done?” he asks, pushing off the wall.

“You know you _don’t_ actually have to ‘get me settled’, right?”

His shoulders sag and he drags a breath from the cigarette. “I know that, it’s just that I don’t want to be volunteered to be Gai’s morning partner or Tenten’s weapons tester. I might be one or the other if I'm not with you.”

At his words, Sakura could not help but chuckle. All the time spent away from Konoha had made her forget about Neji’s ridiculous punishments for recalcitrant shinobis. “Is Konohamaru still Gai’s morning practice partner?” she asks, remembering how Konohamaru had frequently broken the rules while she was still in Konoha and how he had hobbled over to her apartment after every practice, begging to be healed.

“Well, thankfully no. I think Gai hasn’t had a morning partner lately. Even Kiba has been smart about it and picked two months worth of D-ranks instead.”

They turn at a corner and Shikamaru leans an elbow on the counter. “Obaa-san! Two coffees to go.” Shikamaru turns to her. “You still take your coffee black with two sugars?”

“Y-yes. I would like to know why you still remember that.”

“Well, eidetic memory, remember?” He shrugs and turns back to the old lady. “One black with two sugars and one with milk.”

Sakura hasn’t had coffee for so long, she forgotten how it tasted. Full-bodied, the dark tones melding with the molasses and slightly bitter aftertaste. Her last cup had been just before she left for that mission.

Shikamaru chuckles, breaking her out of her musing. “Sorry.” He hides his smile behind a hand, averting his eyes from hers. “I’ve never seen anyone lose themselves in a cup of coffee.”

“S-sorry-” Sakura flushes, taking another gulp of her coffee. “I- I just realised I haven’t had coffee since… since I left.” Taking another sip to distract herself, Sakura could feel her cheeks heat up. Her tongue, unused to talking, is constantly tripping on itself, and Shikamaru’s piercing gaze did not help her nerves.

The walk to the realtors is silent, nothing like the comfortable silence that Shikamaru and her shared before she left. Two years was a long time. Outside of Konoha, time had slipped passed her without realising it, but now that she was back, she could see all the differences - in the buildings, in the trees, in Shikamaru. His face is sharper now, baby fat replaced with lean lines and despite his slouch, Sakura could see his shoulders are broader.

She turns her face, keeping her eyes on the road in front of them when Shikamaru glances at her. What do you say to a friend you abandoned two years ago? Sakura searches her mind for something to say, only to turn up nothing.

“Have you thought of what kind of apartment you want?”

She hasn’t. The apartment she lived in before disappearing had been Kakashi’s, and even though she had stayed there for two years, Sakura did not change anything. She hadn’t wanted an apartment by herself. Team seven was supposed to come back and share a house.

Sakura shakes her head mutely, not quite trusting her voice.

“Well, that’s fine. Perhaps you’ll know what you want after we’ve looked at a few.”

 

 

It takes her two days to find a new apartment that isn’t too far from the hospital and is close enough to a marketplace. With two rooms and a large living room leading into a kitchen, it is nothing like Kakashi’s old apartment. Ino bustles in, barely an hour after Shikamaru left, carrying several potted plants with her husband, Genma, behind carrying a couch.

“You need plants to brighten the place up,” Ino tells her like she’s never left Konoha, then motions to Genma to place the couch down.

“Ino-”

Ino angrily taps Sakura on forehead with enough force to leave a bruise then pulls her into a tight hug. “How dare you leave us, Forehead! I won’t allow you leaving like that again!”

“I- I’m sorry,” she tells Ino, her face hidden in Ino’s shoulder.

“You’ve no idea how worried we were!”

Genma chuckles, “Sakura-chan. Shikamaru and I were ordered by Ino to find you. We even had to call in the Inuzukas and the Aburames. You’re pretty good at hiding your scent.”

Ino shoots her husband a look. “Of course she is. Had she not been an outstanding medic, Sakura would have been the next Anbu Commander.”

“Ino! You’re not supposed to tell people-”

“Genma’s Anbu too and there are no secrets between us,” Ino says indignantly and clasps her hands on Sakura’s shoulders. “There are _no_ secrets between us. Do you understand that? I don’t care how you hid yourself or where you went, you’re gonna tell me _everything._ ”

She flicks her hair over her shoulders. “After all, while you were out gallivanting, poor me was stuck in Konoha with swollen ankles! Without my medic to help ease them.” Ino fakes a sob. “You haven’t even gotten to see your godson!”

“You-you have a s-son?” Sakura smiles wistfully, trying to imagine how Ino’s son would look.

Ino’s eyes soften. “He has Genma’s hair and my eyes, of course. I can show you later, he’s having his afternoon nap now. But first, we need to get you new clothes.” She picks at the standard jounin outfit that Sakura had just received with a look of disgust. “Standard outfits are all fine and dandy for fieldwear, but you are not wearing that when you’re off duty.”

Gripping Sakura’s hand, she spins to the door. “We’re going-”

“-Shopping, I heard you,” Genma says. The senbon in his mouth lifts with his grin. “I’ll be here for when Shikamaru comes back.”

 

 

There are boxes in her apartment when she and Ino return three hours later. Genma hefts another box off his shoulders and drops it onto a neat tower.

“That’s the last box,” he tells Shikamaru

“What are these?” Sakura asks, peering at the labels on the boxes. Written on the boxes are the words ‘ _Kitchen’, ‘Books’, ‘Clothes’_ and all in Shikamaru’s scrawny handwriting. She traces the words out with a finger, turning her head to Shikamaru. “A-are these…”

“Well, you were gone for awhile and…” he trails off, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. Sakura knows what he is thinking even without him finishing the rest of the sentence, but the idea that her friends had kept her stuff surprises her.

 _They weren’t there from the beginning, but they were there for the end_ , she corrects herself.

“You kept them?”

Ino scoffs loudly, folding her arms. “The landlord wanted to throw your stuff out, so Shikamaru took them.”

“Ino didn’t have space for your boxes because of Inojin, so she forced me to take them in,” Shikamaru amends Ino’s conclusion.

Unsure of how to react to their consideration, Sakura turns to the boxes, missing the angry glare Ino shoots at Shikamaru. There is the team seven photo wrapped carefully in bubble wrap in the first box she opens. Not the team seven with the traitor in it, but the one with Captain Tenzou and Sai in it. She peels it open, rubbing a finger over Kakashi’s face. His face looking resigned, his hair partly singed while Tenzou was leaping into the air to get away from the ink lions that Sai had drawn.

She remembers that training session. She remembers Kakashi teaching Sai a fire jutsu, who then turned around and tried to burn Kakashi.

_“Sai! We’re on the same team. Same team!” Kakashi yelps, quickly casting a water jutsu to put out the fire, but not fast enough as it burns half of his hair away._

_“That is for the four hour wait for last week. Ugly says that revenge is part of team dynamics.”_

_“Good job Sai!” Naruto crows from the other side of the field._

_“It wasn’t for you, Dickless.”_

_“Stop calling me that! Or do I need to show you my dick again- wait wait, Sakura. No! Let me explain!”_

“Are you okay?” Shikamaru asks, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Sakura brushes the tears away and hugs him, then Ino. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

 

 

Instead of being put back on the mission roster, Sakura throws herself back into fixing the hospital. It had been her responsibility after the war. Sakura doesn't think that being the most skilful medic means that she should be in charge of the hospital. Masashiro had been a far better administrator than she would ever be. Still, with politics and all, it means that because she was Tsunade's apprentice, Sakura is now the head of the hospital. Though she never wanted to be.

Sakura shuffles the papers, rifling through them as she rearranges them and stamps her seal of approval. The war and her subsequent departure had given her a taste of the field.

Still, Neji - Rokudaime - had requested her to be here. To heal, to set roots down perhaps, Neji had always been someone she couldn't read.

A bento appears on her table and she looks up blearily. "Shika?"

"It's dinner," he drawls. Shikamaru moves a stack of files from a seat and flops into it with a groan.

"Dinner? It's not dinner time yet..."

Shikamaru huffs an amused huff. "How troublesome, I knew you would forget to eat. It's eight pm, woman." He unpacks the bento and sets it in front of her before doing the same for himself. "Ino made your favourites and ordered me to make sure you finish your food."

Sliced lotus stir-fried with strips of pork and seaweed, thick slices of eggplant with fish and rolled omelette, the way she love it. When was the last time she had stir-fried lotus? She picks it up, stuffing into her mouth, and stuffs an eggplant in too. Not as good as how Kakashi-sensei prepared it, but it is very close.

Shikamaru quirks a smile and pushes his bento to her. "You can take mine."

"But what about you?" Sakura asks, swallowing a mouthful of rice.

"It's fine. I'll get ramen on my way home," he says, getting to his feet. "Don't stay too long here. If you stay too long, Ino will nag at me to drag you home. Workaholic!" Shikamaru claps her shoulder with a laugh and heat floods her face.

"I'm not a workaholic!"

"Yes, yes. You did not sleep here last night."

"How did you-" Sakura buries her face in her hands. "It's you! You're the one who tattled to Ino!"

"Don't stay too late!" He smirks, slamming the door behind him.

"Stupid Shika!"

 

 

_She skids backwards, launching herself at Kakashi even as he falls. To go up against a Goddess has to be on the top of the most insane things she had ever done, but insanity has always been what Team Seven deals in._

_Sakura can see claws run through Kakashi’s torso. Too much, too deep. The possibility of Kakashi surviving is far too low for her liking. Her hands are gleaming with green medical chakra when she reaches him. Her heart sinks as she takes in his extensive injuries. Even with the Byakugo seal, there is a high chance of her failing._

_“Kakashi-sensei...”_

_She reaches deep into her reserves, desperately trying to reconnect the pierced organs back together. She can do this. She can save him. She can-_

_Kakashi’s hand wraps around her wrist. “Sa- ku- ra…”_

_“Don’t talk, you idiot!”_

_She ducks as Naruto is thrown towards her. The blood on her hands makes it slippery and hard to hold onto the parts that she is trying to reconnect._

_“Stay with me, sensei.” She channels more chakra into her healing, even releasing her Byakugo for the extra boost. Kakashi is the strongest shinobi she has ever known. If he falls in battle, then what about her? What about the rest of them? “Please, Kakashi-sensei… Rule number two. Don’t die.”_

_His hands slips off hers, falling limply to the ground, and she lets off a keening wail._

_She has to- has to-_

_Sakura gets up to join the fight. It’s just Naruto and her left. The Goddess is gone, but Naruto-_

_Oh kage, not Naruto too. No, no, NO. Not him too._

She wakes with a sob at the back of her throat. Her gasps fill the silence of the room. Sakura leaps out of her window, her bare feet scampering across the rooftops.

“Sakura? It’s two in the morning,” Shikamaru yawns, shifting so that she can squeeze in beside him.

“There, there.” He pats her head sleepily. “Nara’s here to keep the shadows away,” he murmurs, eyes already closing before Sakura can even crawl under the blanket. Tucked in the blanket smelling of him, Sakura finally fades into a deep sleep.

“I was wondering whose cold feet was that on my calves.” Sakura wakes up to the low baritone sighing in her ears.

“Shika?” Sakura yawns, then realises that her arms are wrapped around him. “S-sorry!” She backs away quickly, almost falling off the bed had Shikamaru not caught her in time.

“Don’t start your day with a concussion. That’d be so troublesome.”

“Everything to you is troublesome,” Sakura says cheekily.

His eyes softens for a moment, his lips hitching up at the corner, and she felt the breath catch in her lungs. When she left Konoha, she had been too blind to see the things she left behind, too consumed in her grief to see anything beyond it. How had she missed it?

Shikamaru smirks, grabbing her by the waist and hauling her over his shoulder. “Too early for deep thoughts, Sakura!”

“I- I wasn’t thinking deep thoughts.” She could feel a flush start in her cheeks and climb down to the back of her neck. She had been thinking of the tug in her heart when she saw him smile.

“Yea, sure,” he drawls. “You weren’t.”

He dumps her at the kitchen table and tosses her a shirt too large to be anything but his. “Come on, since you crashed my bed, it’s time for you to pay rental fee in breakfast, troublesome woman.”

 

 

“I- Inojin really acts more like you than Genma.” Sakura smiles as she watches the brown haired baby drag his stuffed deer across the living room.

“Kage, I _hope_ so. Can you imagine him having Genma’s personality? He would be breaking hearts before he even gets into academy,” Ino grouses, rubbing her growing belly. “Ahh, I swear Genma is trying to repopulate Konoha without my knowledge. The morning sickness is so bad.”

Sakura rubs some medical chakra across Ino’s stomach, carefully checking the fetus.

“Well? How is she?” Ino asks, a slightly anxious tone tinging her voice. “What’s wrong with my baby, Sakura?”

Sakura rubs her nose bridge. “Well…” she starts, trying to make sure she read the feedback properly. “There isn’t anything wrong with your baby per se. It’s just that you should be calling them _babies_ instead of _baby._ ”

Ino lifts an eyebrow. “Are you saying I might be having twins?”

“No, I’m saying you _are_ having _triplets_. There are three growing chakra coils in your womb. I had to double check to be sure.” She shrugs, taking a seat beside Inojin.

Ino sinks into her couch, her face paling at Sakura’ revelation. “Oh… oh kage, I’m going to kill Genma.”

“It’s not so bad, at least you and Genma are going to be three steps closer to repopulating Konoha with your offspring.” She helps Inojin stack the blocks and he blabbers to her excitedly, pointing to each block.

“Then what about you?” Ino teases back, nudging a toe into her ribs. “I’ve seen the way you look at Shikamaru.”

Sakura holds her hand out, letting Inojin put his blocks into her hand and back into the container. Ino has seen the way she looked at Shikamaru? What does she mean by that? Sakura hasn’t looked at Shikamaru any differently from her usual way. Unsure on how to respond to Ino’s question after musing on it for awhile, she cocks her head at Ino with a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” Ino grins. “For starters, you have that crinkle when you see him. Is there anything going on between you two?”

The memory of waking up to Shikamaru smiling at her, his hair spread out across the pillow. Her eyes wander from the domesticity of Ino’s house. It isn’t very hard for Sakura to imagine all this belonging to her. Out in the wilderness, while she was tramping across the continents, she had occasionally missed the Sunday afternoons in Ino’s shop and Friday evenings feeding the deer in the Nara forest.

Waking up next to Shikamaru…

Sakura tucks her chin into her neck, focusing on helping Inojin stack his blocks. There is a sense of contentment in that idea. An idea that she wouldn’t be unwilling to follow, but Shikamaru probably doesn’t see her that way. She has been Ino’s friend for the better half of their relationship and Shikamaru does consider Ino his unofficial sister.

Ino isn’t put off by her silence. Sakura knows she’s a far cry from her pre-shinobi war days or even her post-shinobi war period. It worries Ino, and when it worries Ino, she always sends Shikamaru over to harangue her into visiting or something. Sakura’s just used to not talking that much now and though she craved human contact during her travels, sometimes in the village the amount of people on the streets makes her nervous.

“You know, Ino. You should stop nagging at Shikamaru to nag at me.” Sakura feels bad for all the times that Shikamaru has been forced by Ino to come over. She knows Shikamaru would never really say ‘no’ to Ino, especially not how they had lost Chouji in the war.

Ino looks amused, hands twined on her stomach. “You think I do that, but I don’t.” Her lips twists wryly.

“Oh,” Sakura replies faintly, not really sure how to take in her words. Could she be overthinking it? She hasn’t even noticed Shikamaru until recently and Shikamaru has always been like that. No, she pushes the small bloom of hope in her chest. She has to be simply overthinking it.

 

 

“-you have to tell her!” Sakura catches Ino’s voice as she rounds the corner. Her feet still when Shikamaru’s irritated voice answers Ino.

“Tell her what?”

“Tell her you love her! She’ll never make a move if you don’t.” Ino’s reply jars the cracks in her heart. She had hoped that Shikamaru would come to like her as more than a friend, she hadn’t taken into account Shikamaru already loving someone else.

“I won’t. I didn’t do all those things because I wanted her to be with me, I did it because she would be happy. She’s not ready for a relationship. If I made a move and she rejects me, then she would have no one to lean on. I’m _not_ going to do that to her, Ino.”

Sakura always knew Shikamaru was that sort of man. Her heart lurches at his words, wishing she had done something first. Maybe if she had stayed in Konoha, maybe if she hadn’t _left-_ Her fingers claw into her white medic skirt.

“Shikamaru…” Ino’s voice murmurs and Sakura can hear Ino stepping forward. “I’ve seen the way she looked at you…”

Oh _kage_ , the girl loves Shikamaru back. She-

Sakura takes a shuddering breath, the records in her hands falling onto the ground with a loud thump.

“Who’s there?” Shikamaru commands, slamming the door open. “Saku… ra?”

She’s not ready for this. If she had stayed in Konoha maybe things would be different! _Coward_ , her mind whispers as she swivels around and leaps out of the window.

“Wait! Shit!”

If there’s anything to be gained from her… journey, it is that her speed and stamina are better now. She can feel Shikamaru chasing after her, rooftop after rooftop, but she’s not ready to look at him now. Shikamaru loves the girl with all his heart. There will never be space for her. She has to be happy for him. He’ll get a happy ending, especially with what Ino just told him.

So happy.

The thought brings hot frustrated tears to her eyes and she swipes them away with great fury. She should be _happy_ for Shikamaru.

Eventually she senses Shikamaru’s presence disappear from her range. She wedges herself on a tree branch in an isolated training ground.

She’ll cry now, and the next time she sees Shikamaru, she will smile and be happy for him. _Like a friend would_ , she tells herself.

Her shoulders shake with each stuttering gasp.

She will smile.

A fresh wave of tears rolls down her face and before she can tuck her face back into her arms to cry, her body freezes. Her head turns to look down at the lone figure delineated by the sunset.

“Come on Sakura, just… hear me out, okay?” He runs a hand down his face.

“No- leave me alone.” She wants to run away but Shikamaru has her trapped in a body paralysing jutsu.

“Just hear me out, and if you still don’t want to talk to me after that, I’ll go away and never bother you again.”

Her eyes heat up again with another wave of tears at the idea of Shikamaru never being in her life again. She doesn’t think she could stand that. He is the one she came back for.

“Don’t cry!” Shikamaru says in a panic. “Please don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it,” she sniffs, and he sighs loudly.

“Look,” he starts and then stops, pushing a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t know when it started. All I know is that one day you were there and the next you weren’t. And all I could think was of you. I didn’t realise it until you were gone, that I was… I was in love with you. But I- I didn’t want you to think that I was doing all that for something. I just-”

Shikamaru lets out an exasperated growl. “I just wanted you to be happy, okay? You were hurting and I wanted to be there for you.”

“You love me?” Sakura asks, not believing her ears.

“Yes, damnit Sakura. I love you. Maybe for three years, maybe since academy. I don’t know.” Shikamaru looks up and she can see the curve of his lips as he gazes her. “But there’s this warm feeling in me when I look at you that tells me everything is right.”

Even with the yellows and reds tinting the light, Sakura could see the blush all the way to his ears.

“Shikamaru… please release me.”

A disappointed look floods his face and he nods, placing his fingers together to form the jutsu release seal. Sakura stands, heart thumping loudly in her ears. Shikamaru has already confessed, she has to tell him too.

She lands in front of him and she opens her mouth for words she can’t find.

Shikamaru gives her a sad look and shakes his head. “It’s okay, Sakura. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same.” He turns from her, his broad shoulders casting a shadow onto her. Sakura grabs his vest, halting his steps.

“Shikamaru- I- I-”

He rubs her head. “It’s okay, Sakura. I knew it was a possibility that you didn’t love me back and if it makes you uncomfortable, I can stop. I just-”

“No! I- I came back for you. I came back to Konoha because of you,” Sakura says in a rush before he leaves. “Be-because you were always there and I never noticed. I came back for you but I stayed because I realised I loved you.”

“You love me?” He laughs and turns to pulls her in, tight. “She loves me!”

Shikamaru spins her around and then cups her chin, his thumb stroking her cheek. “May I kiss you?”

Instead of replying, she tugs him down by his jounin vest collar, capturing his lips with hers.

When they break apart, she rests her forehead against his collarbone and he strokes her hair gently. “I’m sorry I took so long,” she murmurs. “Why did I wait so long?”

“Because you’re troublesome,” he tells her, grinning.

She whacks him in the ribs and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Because this pairing needs more love. 
> 
> Also would like to clarify that this work was not inspired anyone's. No, I lied. This work was inspired by ["Sunlit between the trees" by floweranza](http://archiveofourown.org/works/280929) and the reason why I do not include an "inspired by..." because it's very different from floweranza's and (from what I understood previously) author's don't like to be linked to works that aren't that similar.
> 
> Also, if no one picked up on it. Ino actually never nagged at Shikamaru. He just does it and uses Ino as an excuse.
> 
> Find me on luna-orlha.tumblr.com


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